The fastest jumping animal

If it's frequency, it's fleas.

If it's distance, it's kangaroo.

The animal that jumps highest.

Fleas are only 0.5~3 mm long and weigh only about 200 mg, but the jumping height can reach 350 mm, in other words, the jumping height is more than 100 times its length. If a flea is as big as a human, its high jump can reach 200 meters. I'm afraid this record is hard to set by the best high jumpers today.

What is even more surprising is that fleas jump every four seconds and can jump for 78 hours in a row. The force used for vertical takeoff is 140 times of the gravity of the earth, that is, 140 times of its own weight. If it takes 100 years to reach the planet according to the normal travel speed, it only takes one year according to the flea jumping speed.

Scientists have done a series of experiments in the laboratory, each time the difficulty is higher and the environment is worse, in an attempt to solve the mystery of fleas. Finally, they found that despite all kinds of hard tests, fleas were intact and showed indestructible mysterious skills. Scientists let a flea jump five times, and then jump again, but not on its legs, but on its head or back, and set up various obstacles for it when it falls. As a result, the fleas kept jumping as before. Although its head or back hit an obstacle, in the end, scientists did not find that the flea had a concussion or a broken internal organs. Why do fleas have this unique ability?

Simple form and complex performance

Are fleas low-level creatures? Is the structure simple? No, the growth and development period of fleas is not shorter than that of some mammals. It goes through three larval stages, then cocoons like silkworms, and comes out of the cocoon a month later, becoming a flea with complete organs, which is longer than the time from embryo development to birth of rabbits. Fleas have slender sensory hairs, and in a sense, their sense of smell is more sensitive than people's.

Trained fleas can also become excellent "actors". Hans Martes and his son run a strange circus in West Germany. The actors in the troupe are neither tigers nor elephants, but fleas as small as punctuation marks. Hans Martes and his son fed them with blood from their arms, and trained these fleas to perform various programs: flea driving and gun pulling, flea riding on a wooden horse, flea bowling, and flea training-a group of flea soldiers practiced in groups under a flag the size of a needle. The most wonderful program is "Flea Waltz". During the performance, flea dancers danced in the waltz music.

Special skeleton structure

Scientists found the flea's "bones" unusual. Its skeleton is made of soft and colorless chitin, and the outer bread is covered with a brown film. It has 19 free movement links, including 6 in the head, 3 in the chest and 10 in the abdomen.

The side of the flea is arched, its body is particularly flat, and its side resistance is great, so it is difficult to strangle it with your fingers. However, although the flea has such a special skeleton and body shape, these alone cannot guarantee that its internal organs will not be shattered. So, what's special about it?

Blood vessels are integrated with the body.

When the flea takes off, it is like a bullet leaving the chamber and disappears with a whoosh. Even the fastest modern movie camera can only capture the blurred figure when it jumps. If the plane flies at such a fast speed, the pilot's cerebral vessels will rupture. Fleas have no blood vessels, or the whole body looks like blood vessels. Flea's body is full of blood. Blood is a nutrient solution containing amino acids, protein, fat and inorganic salts, and its internal organs are soaked in this nutrient solution. Therefore, some people call fleas "jumping water drops".

The flea's heart is like a string of beads, extending from the head to the abdomen. The heart beats at a certain rhythm and sends blood to the whole body. Blood not only provides nutrition for internal organs, but also plays a buffering role in shock and impact. Even if the flea's skeleton hits something, its internal organs will not be damaged. Fleas have many trachea distributed all over the body, so they can get enough oxygen everywhere. In addition, the beating rhythm of flea's heart has almost nothing to do with the frequency of body jumping. Therefore, even if it jumps dozens of times in a row, its heartbeat will not accelerate.

An incredible answer.

Jumping is the characteristic of jumping. Inspired by the vertical take-off of fleas, a British aircraft manufacturing company made a harrier plane that took off and landed vertically. However, further research tells people that the "jump" of fleas seems to be different from what we understand. Fleas are weak from the point of view of jumping. The four feet in front of it can only run a little, and at best, they can only balance when jumping. The two hind legs of fleas are particularly long, and the muscles near the body are the most developed. But these muscles can only produce110 of the energy needed for jumping, and the strength produced by the middle calf and the last slender calf is extremely limited. So, where does the force of 9/ 10 come from?

In this regard, aircraft designers are puzzled. Therefore, the aircraft manufacturing company commissioned Dr. H.C. Bennett-Clark of Edinburgh University and scientific photographer E.C.A Lucy to conduct special research. After a lot of experiments and careful research, they unexpectedly claimed that fleas were not jumping at all.

It turns out that the ancestor of fleas is an insect with wings. Flying insects rely on elastic colloid protein to make their wings swing rapidly. Scientists call this elastic substance "Lacillin". Lacillin has better elasticity than any kind of rubber. The researchers stretched ampicillin to three times its original length, tightened it for several months and then released it. After braking, it returns to its original state. Tightening the rubber band can store energy, and once it is loosened, it can only release 85% energy, because the rubber band cannot be recovered immediately; However, when Lacillin returns to its original state, it can release 97% energy in one thousandth of a second.

Scientists believe that after millions of years of evolution, flea wings gradually degenerate and disappear, and the tear line on the wings is transferred to the adjacent thighs. Fleas "jump" so high, just because of the great role of Lacey Lin's "elastic belt". Specifically, the muscles of the flea's thigh are mainly used to tighten Lachlin. When Lachlin contracts, it will produce a powerful explosive force, which will make the flea bounce up and rise to the height of several tens of centimeters before leaving the string.

Now people are studying the chemical structure of Lacillin and trying to simulate it artificially. It can be predicted that in the near future, synthetic "Lacillin" will replace natural rubber.